From a summary of aspects of epistemology and practice related to assessment in teacher education, I suggest four recurring problems affecting the credibility of assessment of teacher education candidates and beginning teachers--reductionism, disconnectedness of the aspects of the standards, superficiality in the design and implementation of…

Although most college faculty expect their students to analyze Internet and scholarly sources in a critical and responsible manner, recent research suggests that many undergraduates are unable to discriminate between credible and noncredible sources, in part because they lack the proper training and relevant experiences. The authors describe two…

This qualitative study examined the process of adopting online education at three private colleges. All three institutions participating in the study were private Catholic colleges that offered their first online courses in the late 1990s. The research question posed for this study was: Within the participating institutions, how did online…

French and Raven (1959) proposed five bases of social power: referent, expert, legitimate, reward, and coercive power. Other power bases, such as information control and ecological control, have also been proposed. Another factor which might be considered a power base is the credibility of a source. A 2 x 3 factorial design was used to manipulate…

The relevance of ethnographic research to evaluation of educational programs is discussed. The author focuses on evaluation questions that deal with finding out what is happening in a program and if what is happening is desirable. Ethnography suits the purposes of evaluators who answer such questions because they want to know how something works…

In many college and high school forensics tournaments, the topic agenda is derived from "Newsweek,""Time," and "U.S. News and World Report." This use of three profit-oriented, widely circulated magazines as the agenda setting basis of extemporaneous speaking competition is philosophically and substantively damaging.…

A study explored whether religion--both that of the reporter and that of the audience--has an impact on news judgment. The news service used was the Lutheran World Information (LWI). Religion writers and editors for the 42 daily newspapers that receive the Lutheran World Information weekly news packets were surveyed by telephone. Completed…

A study was conducted to determine attitudes of police toward components of the law enforcement process and whether differences in rank, level of police enforcement, years of service to a police force, or familiarity with reporters made a difference in police attitudes toward newspaper reporters. Thirty-one officers completed a two-part…

Research shows that people comply more frequently to threats when the credibility of the source is high rather than low and that compliance is directly related to punishment magnitude. To examine the impact of an advisor on a target of threats, male college students (N=74) participated in an experiment that included high or low threatner…

A study examined the effect of humor on the perceived credibility, character, and authority of an advertisement and on the recall of that advertisement. Two groups of subjects each heard two radio spot announcements, one humorous and one serious. Two different products were advertised, so that the first group of subjects, 117 college advertising…

Feedback, i.e., information provided by others regarding behavioral assets (positive feedback) and deficiencies (negative feedback), is commonly utilized in personal growth and training groups to bring about constructive personal change. Research on feedback sequence and valence has led to conflicting conclusions as to which sequence, a…

A survey of 65 newspaper editors and 64 television news directors was conducted to examine policies concerning unnamed sources and unattributed information in news stories, and to measure the effects of the incident in which a "Washington Post" reporter fabricated a major story and claimed that she had granted her sources…

Virtue in journalism implies a clearsighted expansion of outlook and requires determined attempts to cross boundaries separating the journalist from society, journalist from subject, journalist from journalist, journalist from ideas, journalist from sentiments and feelings, and journalist from "inner abundance." Some of the requirements for the…

While it is customary to consider "information" synonymous with true information, given its societal significance in the modern world, a wider perspective on the veracity and ephemerality of information is imperative. A typology of message veracity contains four types: informational, misinformational, disinformational, and…

The assumption, which has influenced broadcast news reporting hiring practices, that women broadcasters are not as believable, acceptable, or effective as men broadcasters is explored in this research report. Four network newscasters, two males and two females chosen on the basis of similar professional competency and stature audio tape in…